John Dod of Cloverley

c 1455 to c 1550 (estimated)

DOD00058

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1450

John Dod, probably the son of John Dod of Cloverley (DOD00055), may have been born in about 1455.

John Dod, of Cloverley Hall, made an unknown indenture with John Chester 1550, married firstly Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Ralph Egerton, of Ridley, Shropshire, Standard bearer of England, and had issue. He married secondly, Alice, daughter of Robert Aston, of Ticehill, Staffordshire, and by her had issue. (Burke, John and Burke, Sir Bernard (1836)(Eighteenth Edition, 1972), Bellyse Baker of Highfields in Burke’s Landed Gentry, Volume 3, pages 35 to 38).

1480

In say about 1480, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Ralph Egerton, of Ridley, Shropshire, Standard bearer of England.

They had seven daughters:

· Jane, married Hugh Sandford, of Sandford, Shropshire, and died 1530, leaving issue (see the Sandfords of the Isle of Rossall). He died 1530.

· Margery, married Jacob Harleston, of Harleston, Cheshire.

· Eleanor, married Richard Steventon of Dothill, Wellington, Shropshire, and had issue (see Herald’s Vision of Shropshire, 1623).

· Martha, married Griffin (or Griffith) Hinton, of Hinton, Whitchurch, Shropshire and had issue (see Herald’s Vision of Shropshire, 1623).

· Agnes, married George Coleclough, of Calverhall, Shropshire.

· Margaret, married Robert Corbet, of Chester.

· Alice, living in 1500, married John Hill, of Buntingdale, Shropshire, younger son of Thomas Hill, of Court of Hill (see 1952 Edition, Hill-Lowe of Court of Hill).

(Burke, John and Burke, Sir Bernard (1836)(Eighteenth Edition, 1972), Bellyse Baker of Highfields in Burke’s Landed Gentry, Volume 3, pages 35 to 38).

1500

In say about 1500, he married Alice, daughter of Robert Aston, of Ticehill, Staffordshire.

1508

On 8 July 1508 at Westminster there was granted a Pardon to John Dodde of Cloreley, Co Salop, ‘gentilman’, alias ‘yeoman’, of felonies, murders and other offences. (Patent Rolls of the reign of Henry VII, 1494 to 1509, page 591).

The dual description gentilman, alias yeoman was a legal strategy. Under the Statute of Additions 1413, royal indictments were legally required to state the exact name, status or occupation, and estate of the accused. If a prosecutor listed someone as a gentilman but they technically held land as a yeoman, the defence could throw the case out of court on a technicality. To prevent a future indictment or to cover an existing one, the royal pardon listed every possible status the individual might hold. This ensured that no matter how prosecutors chose to classify John Dod in court, the pardon would remain legally airtight and cover him completely.

This was unlikely to have related to particular crimes committed, but rather it was a royal pardon acting a protective legal shield. Instead of listing a specific event, pardons routinely used sweeping language to ensure that any potential past crime, known or unknown, was covered. The local gentry of Shropshire were frequently involved in violent property disputes, land grabbing, riots, and blood feuds with rival families. It is possible John Dod or his retainers were involved in an affray or a land dispute that resulted in a death. It may be that he committed no crime at all, and the word was simply included to provide absolute legal immunity.

There are two main reasons King Henry VII would issue this pardon in July 1508.

Henry VII is notorious for his financial rapacity. In the later years of his reign (roughly 1502 to his death in 1509), the king used the legal system as a fundraising mechanism. Working through his hated financial ministers, Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley, the Crown systematically investigated the gentry and nobility for real or manufactured technical infractions, such as illegal retaining of private armies, rioting, or enclosing land. Landowners would proactively purchase a General Pardon from the Chancery to protect themselves from royal prosecution. John Dod likely paid a significant fee to the Crown for this document to ensure his estates and wealth were safe from the king's auditors.

If John Dod actually did commit a crime, or even killed someone, early modern law did not clearly differentiate sentences for self-defence or accidental killing (manslaughter) at the initial trial level. If a local court found that a killing was accidental or done in self-defence, the standard legal remedy was that the convict's life was spared by securing a formal pardon from the King via the Chancery.

Given the sweeping gentilman alias yeoman phrasing, this entry strongly points to a proactive, paid-for general pardon meant to insulate a wealthy Shropshire landowner from the clutches of Henry VII’s legal system.

1539

There was a grant Geo. Cotton, and Mary, his wife. Grant, in tail male, of the house and site of the late monastery of Combermere, Cheshire, the church, steeple, and churchyard thereof, &c., and certain closes and woods (specified) in Wrenbury and Awdelem, Cheshire, the manor of Wylkesley, Cheshire, with lands called Heyfeldes, in Wrenbury and Awdelem, the lands called Dodcotte in the tenure of John Dodd, in Chyles Arkoll, Salop ; and the land called Clyff, in the tenure of John Hilles, in Dray ton in Hales, Salop, and granges called Erled grange, now in the tenure of James Colyer, in Stafford ; Wyucull grange, now in the tenure of Edm. Savage, in Presbury, Cheshire ; Newton grange, now in the tenure of Hugh Bereforde, and John Bereforde, in Assheborne, Derb; Cots grange, alias " Cots felde," now in the tenure of Francis Bassett, in Hortonton, Derb. ; all which premises belonged to the said late monastery ; in as full manner as the last abbot held the same. The grantees to be discharged of an annual rent of 66s 8d for the said lands called Hey felds. Del., Walden, 24 Aug., 31 Hen. VIII.— S.B. Pat. p. 1, m. 2. Vacated on personal surrender by the said George and Mary, 1 Feb., 32 Hen. VIII., in order that the grant might be made out in another form. (Public Records of the reign of Henry VIII, Volume 14 – Part 2, Folio 113 (22))

Following the dissolution in August 1539 the Crown quickly transferred the extensive properties of the dissolved Combermere Abbey into private secular hands. George Cotton was a prominent courtier, and this grant established his family as major landowners in the Cheshire-Shropshire border region.

The text explicitly notes that certain closes and woods and a significant estate called Heyfeldes (Heyfields) were located within Audlem and nearby Wrenbury. These had all been owned and managed by the monastery. The reference to closes (enclosed fields) and woods indicates that the land around Audlem was a developed agricultural landscape of managed timber and enclosed farming pastures rather than wilderness.

While ownership shifted from the Abbot to the Crown, and then to the Cotton family, the actual day-to-day farming was steady. The document details specific tenants (like John Dodd and James Colyer in nearby granges), showing that while the landlords changed overnight, the local tenant farmers generally remained on the land.

By 1539, the lands of Heyfeldes were already in the tenure of John Dod. Although tempting to deduce that the family had already taken a tenancy at Highfields at this stage, this is presumably a reference to the land which is now called Heyfields Farm, about a kilometre east of Wilkesley, though still only 3 kilometres west of Highfields. The Dod family therefore already had tenancy interests in the vicinity of Highfields, before they acquired that land as well through marriage into the Chester family.

The grant explicitly discharges the Cottons from an annual rent of 66s 8d for the Heyfields property in Audlem, an example of how the Crown used monastic wealth to financially favour and secure the loyalty of loyal subjects.

The record at the end shows the bureaucratic fluidness of this period. The Cottons surrendered this specific deed just a few months later in February 1541 (32 Henry VIII) simply to have the property granted back to them in a legally altered or more secure format.

Sir George Cotton (c.1495–1545) was a powerful Tudor courtier, politician, and landowner who leveraged his close relationship with Henry VIII to build a vast family fortune. He came from a modest gentry background as the second son of John Cotton of Coton, Shropshire. However, his career accelerated rapidly through royal service. He began his rise as an Esquire of the Body to Henry VIII and was a frequent archery companion to the King. In 1526, he was appointed governor to Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond, Henry VIII's deeply loved, illegitimate son. Managing the household of the King's only male child at the time cemented his status at court. Following FitzRoy’s early death, Cotton was appointed Vice-Chamberlain to the household of the King's legitimate heir, the future Prince Edward (Edward VI). He was later knighted for his services in 1542.

When the Dissolution of the Monasteries began, Cotton was perfectly positioned to profit. In August 1539, he and his wife, Mary Onley, were granted the massive properties of Combermere Abbey. Sir George quickly tore down the ancient abbey church and most of its monastic buildings, using the surviving structural core, specifically the Abbot's House, to establish a grand country estate. His descendants would remain at Combermere Abbey as dominant regional figures for nearly four hundred years, holding the estate until 1919.

John Dod also had a tenancy in the grange of Chesthull, Shropshire, recorded in July 1539. By John, formerly abbot, predecessor of the first named, on the eve of Annunciation 21 Hen. VII, to Rob. Moreton, of the farm or grange of Chesthill alias Cesthill, Salop, late in the tenure of Ralph Hill, deceased, and now in that of John Dod; for the term of 60 years, from the feast of St. Katherine A.D. 1531, at £4 4s rent (Public Records of the reign of Henry VIII, Volume 14 - Part 1, Folio 1354 (43)). Chesthull, historically spelled Chesthill or Cesthill, was a medieval manor and grange in Shropshire, today recognised as a lost settlement located across the parishes of Moreton Say and Stoke upon Tern, near Market Drayton. It is historically identified with Stoke Grange, which served as a major monastic outfarm. The prelate mentioned in the 1539 tenancy record was Abbot John, who oversaw Combermere Abbey, the Cistercian monastery that owned the estate until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. He issued the original 60 year lease on 24 March 1506 (the eve of the Feast of the Annunciation in the 21st year of Henry VII's reign) to Robert Moreton. Abbot John was a predecessor to Christopher Walley and the final abbot, John Massey.

1550

He made an unknown indenture with John Chester (relative of Hugh Chester?) in 1550.

He must have lived until about that time.